Dry Season. Gabriela Babniik

thought about the things she left behind I would explode. As it was, I already felt like a horse, every day on the road, every day with Malik on my back. The days we were not stealing we did something else. We rolled ganja and smoked. And that was it. Usually, we leaned against the corner of some house and watched the hustle and bustle of the people in front of us, like in a movie or something. Since we were stoned, we could not understand the subtitles. But now that I did not want to get high anymore, even Malik was getting on my nerves. I imagined him riding his naked moto, waving his arms, and then sometimes standing up because his arse hurt – no other reason, just his arse, although he said it was easier to see ahead that way, right to the end of the road. If I was riding behind him, he would point to the drivers of the luxury cars. ‘Have you see him, dat bastard?’ he would yell to me over his shoulder. ‘Dey have da A.C. but still dey use da kleenex.’ If it was not for him I would not have noticed the tissue box with the pretty design on the dashboard. The car was really too big not to have air conditioning, and basically stuff like that is what made me like Malik. He knew how to see things, knew how to see women too; he would stretch out his hand and open their hearts up in a single stroke. But that was back then, ages ago; now things are completely different.